"Jian Yi, I want you to explain everything to me today. Don't you think about going anywhere!"

Song Yu could still hear Guan Xiaolin's shrill voice from the elevator.

"Let me go!" Flustered and exasperated, Jian Yi howled and exerted all of his strength to break free from Guan Xiaolin's hand. He used his free hand to grab her wrist and pry her grip.

Out of the blue, Guan Xiaolin felt a surge of determination and energy. She gnashed her teeth and refused to let go despite her expression paling from the pain.

"You still wanna chase after Song Yu and explain to her? No way! I'm telling you, Song Yu heard all about your filthiness. Do you think that if you chased after her and explained it to her, she'll believe you or even forgive you?" The pain distorted her facial expressions, but she scoffed stubbornly at him. "Hmph! She wouldn't believe a word you say!"

"Even if you went after her, she'll only look at you with disgust. You lied to her all these years; you went through so many women just to climb the corporate ladder, and yet she still thinks you're pure. Even though there's nothing concrete between you two, but in her eyes, you've already overstepped the limits! No woman would be willing to accept that the man they love has been soiled!"

Their voices still remained audible even though the elevator was on its way down. Song Yu lowered her head and covered both ears with her hands. She felt disgusted.

The two of them were people that she trusted the most, but at that moment, her world was turned upside down by both of them at the same time.

She had always trusted Jian Yi, but after knowing that he—a person whom she had always placed her trust on—was undeserving of her trust, who else could she trust in the future?

When the elevator reached the bottom floor, the doors opened and Song Yu walked out of the elevator in a muddled state of mind.

She slowed her pace down upon seeing Qi Chengzhi.

He was leaning on the car door with one hand in his pants pocket and the other holding a cigarette. A puff of smoke escaped his lips.

He looked at Song Yu indifferently and tossed the cigarette on the floor to extinguish it. He then calmly said, "Let's go."

…

…

"Jian Yi, so much time has passed, Song Yu's long gone!" Guan Xiaolin's grimacing face let out a pleased smile. The two contradicting expressions made her face looked somewhat idiosyncratic.

Jian Yi paused suddenly and stopped tussling with her. He seemed to have thought of something and looked coldly at her. With a low voice, he said, "Guan Xiaolin, you did this on purpose, didn't you? You came to me all of a sudden tonight because you knew Song Yu would come, so you made a point to act out all this in front of her just so she'd hear it! Right?"

"I thought it was weird that Qi Chengyue would suddenly call me here, but she hasn't come yet. The both of you were in on this whole act!"

"With regards to the elder Qi lady, I'm not worthy of being associated with her. She doesn't know about us, because if she did, do you think she'd let me go?" Guan Xiaolin released her grip and no longer pulled on him.

Even if Jian Yi were to go after Song Yu, there was no way he could catch up with her.

"Whether you believe me or not, it was sheer luck that Song Yu heard us. I never expected it to happen. If you don't want anyone to know you did something, don't do it. None of today's events would have happened if you hadn't done all those vile things, and you wouldn't even need to worry that Song Yu would find out." Guan Xiaolin smiled disdainfully. "Jian Yi, you brought this upon yourself."

"At first, I thought you were close to Song Yu because of the Song family, but even though they were bankrupt for so many years, you still chose to be with her. It seems you truly do like her. Pity. You can run to her and explain but she'll never believe you. Even though you wanted to look for a lover, you didn't come to me. I lost to Song Yu, but I won't sit still and watch both of you be together."

"LEAVE!" Jian Yi said fiercely. He looked at Guan Xiaolin with a malicious gaze, as if he was itching to break her.

"You don't need to tell me that. I wouldn't want to stay here any longer either," she replied frostily and turned to press the elevator button.

…

…

"I'm hungry." Song Yu touched her stomach.

Coincidentally, the car passed through an intersection to a food street. There were plenty of people in the street and it was very lively. Puffs of smoke were present, and the faint smell of barbecue wafted into car notwithstanding the rather tightly-shut car windows.

Back at Shengyue, she only had a few bites before Qi Chengyue showed up.

Smelling the delicious aromas made her feel quite hungry.

Qi Chengzhi remained silent and parked his car somewhere on the side of the road. He then followed Song Yu into the food street.

The street was filled with countless small shops and none of them were clean. There were even some small stalls on both sides of the road, selling food like Chinese cold dishes1, Liangpi2, Chinese stuffed flatbread3, fried rice, and fried noodles. Many customers patronized the stalls even though it was wintertime.

People were walking shoulder-to-shoulder in the narrow road. Qi Chengzhi—with his expensive suit, black wool overcoat, sour face, lanky figure, and potent imposingness—appeared incompatible with the food street and stood out like a sore thumb.

"Which one?" Qi Chengzhi shielded Song Yu and stopped her from being pushed around by the crowd. His long arms instinctively circled her waist, pulling her closer to him and making sure that he was protecting her carefully.

Throughout their walk, not a single person managed to come in contact with Song Yu.

The wind blew Qi Chengzhi's smoky scent over to her. She was firmly pressed against his warm chest, and when he spoke his breaths landed on her forehead and warmed her face up.

Song Yu simply pointed at a shop without looking properly. Qi Chengzhi then led her into it.

She realized it was a chuan'r1 shop.

There were roasted pork ribs in different marinades and mala-dipped chuan1.

Song Yu ordered some ribs as well as a pot of mala-dipped chuan. Like eating hotpot, a round pot was placed on the electric stove in the center of the table. A red layer of chili oil covered the surface of the soup base.

"Bro, one bottle of beer please." Song Yu called out to the young male server.

Qi Chengzhi frowned but did not say anything. In his silence, he cleaned the utensils, plates, and cups using some hot water.

He was not wearing his glasses because they were foggy earlier. They were placed in his car and he did not wear them again.

Song Yu noticed that he did not wear his glasses whenever he was with her.

Before Qi Chengzhi could dry off the cup, Song Yu grabbed it and poured herself a cup of beer. With the excuse that the mala was too spicy, she did not eat much but instead drank bottles and bottles of beer.

"I liked him for thirteen years." Qi Chengzhi looked at the red-faced, looney-eyed woman in front of him. She was hardly able to steady herself in her chair and her words bordered on incomprehensibility. "Qi Chengzhi, you're the kinda man that scares me, ya know? Mysterious and all. It's hard to know what you're thinking of. There's always something behind every word.

"Jian Yi, he's different. He's always been gentle and warm since the first day I met him. Things are just so simple when I'm with him, and I like it. I like that peaceful feeling. I've always trusted him and I felt that he'd never lie to me. But in the end? Everything he said to me was a lie. I thought I was a good judge of character, but the reality? I never understood him at all and I never truly knew him. I never imagined that there are people whose insides are completely different from their outsides.

"I'm beginning to doubt my ability to judge people. Am I that dumb? Can't I even judge a person's character? I can't even trust a man I've known for thirteen years. Tell me, who else can I trust? Who else would I dare to trust?

"Guan Xiaolin said he treated me well in the past because of my family. Before the engagement with Chengji, I went to look for him hoping that he'd confess to me. But nooooo. I thought it was because he's more mature than I was and didn't want me to feel troubled. Now that I think about, he's thinking for his own future, right? I'll rebel and fall out with my family if I don't get married to Chengji, and he does not need a disgraced daughter. In the end, I'll still be forced into the engagement, and the Song family won't like him because he turned me into a rebel. My parents would exclude him from my life completely, and the last thing on his mind is to lose the support of the Song family.

"Do you know what it's like when your trust just collapses all of sudden? Do you know how it feels when something you thought was a strong wall turned out to be a pile of tofu? I experienced all that today. I thought he was my friend, but he was actually plotting against me. Someone that I liked for thirteen years turned out to be a liar. I hid my feelings for so many years, and all of a sudden, everything became a joke. It all became worthless, disappearing just like smoke." Song Yu waved her hands in the air.

She swayed her cup and downed the last bit of alcohol. She took the bottle from her side and inverted it horizontally. Two drops were all that came out. She shook the bottle violently a few times, then placed it down audibly, neither too forcefully nor too lightly.

She recalled the first time she had alcohol—it was when she graduated from senior high.

Completely unaware of her alcohol tolerance, she got drunk fairly quickly. It was quite bad as she practically went on a drunken rampage.

Jian Yi could not send her back in such a state, so he told Guan Xiaolin to call Song Yu's parents and tell them that she would be spending a night with the Guan family.

In truth, it was Jian Yi who brought Song Yu home and nursed her for one night.

Song Yu smiled bitterly and yawned. Her forehead fell flat on the table. Without the slightest warning, she closed her eyes and fell asleep.

"The bill, please," Qi Chengzhi asked expressionlessly. His dark and enigmatic eyes were constantly fixed on Song Yu.

Once he footed the bill, Song Yu was deep in slumber. Qi Chengzhi carried her and brought her into the car, and he drove back to his apartment.

During the journey, Song Yu would sometimes mumble a few incoherent words.

…

…

Aunt Yang was startled to see Qi Chengzhi carrying a girl into the house. It was the first time she saw Song Yu. On the earlier occasion, Aunt Yang had her the day off, so she did not meet Song Yu then. For the first time, Aunt Yang saw Qi Chengzhi bringing a woman back, and a drunk one at that.

"Sir, this is…"

"Get the guest room ready," Qi Chengzhi said while still carrying Song Yu.

"Ah, okay," Aunt Yang responded and immediately went to tidy it up.

When she came out, Qi Chengzhi was still holding the woman.

"Go and rest. Don't mind me," Qi Chengzhi told Aunt Yang.

Having left Aunt Yang behind, he went into the guest room. Song Yu's head rubbed against Qi Chengzhi for a moment and she muttered, "Jian Yi…"

Qi Chengzhi narrowed his eyes and let go of his hands. He threw Song Yu onto the bed immediately, producing a loud thud.

Being a tall man, Song Yu landed onto the bed with some impact after being thrown by Qi Chengzhi. It was a sudden toss, leading Song Yu to regain consciousness for a brief moment.

Song Yu rolled on the bed and grumbled in pain. She rubbed her nose and mumbled once more before falling back to sleep.

Qi Chengzhi stared cynically at her drowsy appearance. Her face was red and her eyes were shut, but her forehead had a frown and she did not seem to be in peace.

She was lying down on the bed with her head tilted to one side. Her thumb was pressed at her lips and she looked hesitant to suck on it.

"Sir, I brought some blankets." Aunt Yang carried the blankets in and intended on covering Song Yu. Qi Chengzhi however, put those blankets away.

"She's very drunk. She won't know that it's cold. No need for the blanket." Once he finished saying that, he took the blanket and went out.

Aunt Yang looked on in astonishment as Qi Chengzhi left. She then turned to the sound asleep Song Yu, who was curled into a ball as a result of being cold. She wondered what the sleeping girl did to anger Qi Chengzhi.

She looked at her thick clothes and knew that it would be uncomfortable to sleep like that. Aunt Yang dug up her pajamas, then replaced Song Yu's clothes with the sleepwear.

With no blanket left, Aunt Yang covered Song Yu with the latter's jacket before leaving.

Qi Chengzhi told Aunt Yang to head to bed. He smoked half a cigarette and looked at the two blankets on top of his bed. One was his, and the other was the fresh one that Aunt Yang picked up.

He stared blankly for some time before putting out his cigarette. He then walked to his bed and took his blanket, after which he made his way to the guest room.

He noticed that Aunt Yang had given Song Yu a change of clothes. She was covered only with her jacket and was trembling hard from the cold.

Qi Chengzhi whisked away the jacket and covered her with his blanket.

The blanket was slightly cold to the touch, and even though Song Yu was asleep, she unconsciously grasped tight on her blanket and curled up. Slowly, she began to feel warm, and only then did her furrowed brows begin to relax. The tension in her body began to disappear, and she flipped over to continue sleeping.

Song Yu's bag had been tossed onto the floor, and from it came the sound of a ringing phone.

Qi Chengzhi took the phone out and saw the name, Jian Yi. He narrowed his eyes, twitched his lip, then declined the call. Subsequently, he blacklisted the number and deleted the name from her contacts.

Qi Chengzhi glanced briefly at Song Yu and went back to his room with her phone.

…

…

Jian Yi sat inside the car. He looked up through the car window and saw that the window to Song Yu's apartment was pitch black.

Moments after Song Yu left, he drove to her place and knocked on her door, but Song Yu was not home.

He called Song Yu's parents and asked if she was there, but Yu Qianying replied in the negative.

Yu Qianying's acute perception led her to ask what was going on, whether there was an argument or something of the sort. Jian Yi dodged the question.

He then called Song Yu, but the call was declined.

Where in the world would she have gone that late at night?

In his frustration, Jian Yi called Song Yu's number again, but there was no response at all, not even a single beep from the dial tone.

…

…

Qi Chengzhi woke up feeling incredibly sour since it was the incessant ringing that roused him from his sleep. The foreign ringtone confused him for a moment, but when he finally came to his senses, he remembered that it was Song Yu's phone.

He looked at the time on the phone. It was barely a quarter past six. The string of numbers was foreign and it looked like it was from a landline.

Qi Chengzhi guessed as to who that number belonged to. He sat up straight and allowed the phone to continue ringing for a while. Calm and unruffled, he picked it up and answered it. He feigned a hoarse voice to give the impression that he was woken up by the ringing, and he said, "Yes?"

"WHO ARE YOU? Why do you have Song Yu's phone? WHERE'S SONG YU?!" On the other end of the phone came Jian Yi's bad-tempered voice.

Qi Chengzhi smiled as he imagined how ruffled Jian Yi must have been.

"She's sleeping," Qi Chengzhi replied and hung up immediately without giving Jian Yi a chance to say anything. He blacklisted the number as well and deleted all records of it.

Standing in front of a newsstand, Jian Yi listened as the call went straight to the dial tone. He got so angry that he nearly smashed the telephone handset onto the ground.

He waited at Song Yu's apartment for the whole night but she never showed up. He could not call her either, and after a few tries, he knew that he had been blacklisted.

Since it was so late in the night, the newsstands were all closed.

It was an arduous wait for Jian Yi. He waited until the newsstand opened for business and went there immediately, but little did he expect that he would be greeted by a man's voice when he made a call!

Newsstands' telephones were not high tech. They were the cheapest of the cheap and did not even have a screen. Naturally, the audibility was poor as well.

The voice was even more unrecognizable when taking into account how Qi Chengzhi faked a hoarse morning voice.

Jian Yi called Song Yu's cell phone, but the person who answered so early in the morning was a man. In his anger, he was not in the right frame of mind to discern the caller, but because of that half-awake male voice, Jian Yi's mind could not help but go wild.

He forcefully placed the handset back to the phone, and his face was filled with cold emotion.

"Boy, you'd better put it down nicely. Don't vent your anger on my phone. If it breaks, you'll have to pay!" The newsstand's lady boss was far from pleased.

Jian Yi ignored her and called Song Yu once more. There was no sound, which meant that the number had been blacklisted as well.

Sour and angry, he put down the handset, paid, and left.

…

…

"Miss, Miss."

Song Yu was sleeping very soundly when she felt someone shaking her.

She opened her eyes slowly and saw a beautiful, kind-looking lady that was about forty or so years old.

A frown appeared on Song Yu's forehead. Her brain was feeling pain, and after a couple of groans, she propped herself up. "What's happening?"

"Sir told me to wake you up, Miss, or else you'd be late for work," Aunt Yang said warmly.

As the blanket slid off her waist, she stared in shock at what looked like a man's blanket. She believed that she caught a whiff of Qi Chengzhi's scent, but she did not know whether she perceived the smell wrongly.

Song Yu shook her head. Her face reddened because of that and she wondered why she had to think of him for no apparent reason.

Looking down, she noticed herself wearing some rather big-sized pajamas.

Without waiting for Song Yu to process the shock, Aunt Yang explained hurriedly, "When Sir brought you back last night, you were very drunk. It wouldn't be comfortable for you to wear your clothes to sleep, so I helped you changed your clothes. These pajamas are mine, but I hope you don't mind that they are old!"

Aunt Yang's explanation enabled Song Yu to breathe a sigh of relief, but the latter noticed how Aunt Yang liked using the word 'Sir'.

"When you say 'Sir', are you referring to Qi Chengzhi?" Song Yu asked apprehensively.

"Yes, I am! You were too drunk last night, Miss. You were unconscious when Sir brought you home last night. I was given a shock!" Aunt Yang smiled.

"I'm sorry." Song Yu retracted. At that precise moment, her only wish was to disappear from existence. "I gave everyone so much trouble."

"Hehe, don't worry. You didn't make a mess when you were drunk. You only slept," Aunt Yang consoled her. "Miss, you should get ready. Breakfast is already waiting for you."

Song Yu thanked her and left her to continue her work. With no other clothes to wear, Song Yu wore the clothes that she had worn the day before.

The guest room had its own bathroom, and Aunt Yang brought over some fresh bath products for Song Yu. As Song Yu bathed with the door closed, Aunt Yang began tidying the sheets outside.

Upon seeing Qi Chengzhi's blanket, Aunt Yang stared at it in confusion for some time. She mumbled to herself, "I thought Sir didn't want Miss Song to have a blanket? Why is his blanket with her now?"

When she tidied Qi Chengzhi's bedroom in the morning, he used the new blanket that she brought out last night. How strange was that!

- - - - - - -

拌涼菜 – translated as 'Chinese cold dishes', these are a variety of salad-like dishes normally served as appetizers.涼皮 – translated as 'Liangpi', a cold noodle dish made from wheat or rice flour, originating from Shaanxi province and spread to much of China.雞蛋灌餅 – translated as 'Chinese stuffed flatbread', they are Chinese-style flatbreads of which the closest equivalent is the Indian murtabak. Both share the characteristics of being street food which are stuffed with various fillings.串兒店 – translated as chuan'r shop. Chuan'r is also known as chuan, and it refers to Chinese-style meat skewers that are similar to typical Arabian kebabs and Malaysian satay.麻辣串 – translated as mala-dipped chuan, these are chuan that are cooked in a hotpot with mala-based soup. Mala is a common sauce that is known for being numbingly spicy, hence the name mala. (麻 = numbing; 辣 = spicy)